When do habits become OCD?

[Dorsetmike]

Do you find as you get older that routine things become habits and sometimes seems like more than just habit. (OCD = obsessive compulsive disorder)

Examples, you take 3 different tablets each morning, do you take them in the same order, before or after you put the kettle on? making a cup of instant coffee, do you always put in the sugar/sweetener, coffeemate and coffee in the same order each time or just as they come from the cupboard? Always tear off the same number of sheets of loo roll? You always visit sites on the net in the same order each morning/evening?

(Ooh isn't the wall nice and soft, could almost be padded, why can't I move my arms in this nice new jacket?)

[Krummhorn]

Hi Mke,

Yup ... we are all creatures of habit. My morning routine is mostly the same everyday (except Sunday). I have either coffee or iced tea, take my morning meds, get a bite to eat then settle in front of the PC and check my emails, then check the two forums.

I try to vary my daily routine during (the time between morning and night) the day though - some days I'll clean the house and do laundry, other days do those little idiotic projects that are always present as our reward to being a homeowner.

I've never counted the sheets pulled off the loo roll ... now, you've got me thinking on that one Mike ... thanks for that .

[teddy]

My Morning routine includes running out of the house screaming as I am late for the office again. I think routine only becomes obsessive once you can not break it. I need my habits to ensre I have done eveything that is nessesary, like taking all my tablets. If I do not leave my keys on the sideboard i will lose them. We do it because we do it, and it is habit. Going back ten times to check the gas is off is obsessive. Checking it regularly before leaving the house is not. Routines like a cup of tea and breakfast before taking your tablets is sensible. They then have something to land on.

teddy

[White Knight]

Thanks for that Teddy. Now I can take comfort in the fact that maybe I'm not yet going senile after all!

[Mat]

I don't have any morning meal routine, but I do have a preference of visiting my favorite web sites: first email accounts, then forums and then all the rest. Also: checking if I locked the car - numerous times, checking if I still got my wallet and cellphone - EVERYTIME I get off a bus, checking if I've made any typos before sending a post or printing out a document, and don't get me started on my PC switching off routine...

Does this qualifies me as someone who suffers from OCD?

[Contratrombone64]

No Mat - you're perfectly normal. I know what you mean about checking you've got your keys (you get more aggressive at that as you get older, at least I do).

[wljmrbill]

Less face it..most musicians are a little OCD folks.. or we wouldn't be as good as we are,, Just listen to people talk about us..LOL

[marval]

Well I don't think I have OCD, hold on a minute while I just check that.

I think it is good to have a routine for taking medicines, but I don't really have one for other things.


Margaret

[Chi_townPhilly]

I think it is good to have a routine for taking medicines, but I don't really have one for other things.

Yupyupyup.

For people who are increasingly (well) forgetful, it's actually important to 'groove' key routines. Then, it's not a matter of planning the events of a month, or a week, but being aware of the processes of a day, then repeating the process each day, indefinitely.

[marval]

Well I do like to check I have my key before I go out. There are things I do, but not necessarily at the same time.


Margaret

[OLDUDE]

How strange.
I didn't realize that there were people as far afield as N.Z. and Phili who (like me) rattle when they walk.
Keys! - Please dont talk about Keys.
But do you walk upstairs or into the Kitchen and stop - Scratch your head and think.What the hell am I standing here for?

[Contratrombone64]

Oldude - I'm only 47 and I've already started heading off willfully in a certain direction only to have my brain shutdown and stop in the tracks thinking, wtf?

[Dorsetmike]

Sounds like there's no hope for you David! Must be something in the Australian climate that does it. Up here in the northern hemisphere the symptoms rarely strike before 60.

[teddy]

Mike,
You will know you are OCD if you start running your trains to a strict timetable with exactly the same sets of carriages or trucks.

teddy

[Dorsetmike]

Hardly Teddy, that's prototypical practice, except for the wagons on some freight trains. Not so prototypical for modern railways as they don't adhere to the timetable anyway, always running late, although the freight nowadays tends to have less variety.

In the 1930s, which I attempt to reproduce, punctuality was the norm, not the exception. Carriage stock on the Southern was also kept marhalled as sets.